Word of Salvation – September 2026
Title: Rejected by the World But Chosen by God
Sermon by Rev Jesse Gollan
Series: How to Survive in a Hostile World
Passage: 1 Peter 2:4-10
1 Peter 2:4-10
Sermon at a Glance:
- The Rejected Stone (vv. 4-8): Jesus as the cornerstone and our call to be “living stones.”
- The New Identity (v. 9): Our status as a chosen race, royal priesthood, and holy nation.
- The Mercy of God (v. 10): Moving from “no people” to “God’s people” through mercy.
It’s interesting. Something that I’m aware of is that I will never properly fit in, no matter where I live.
I will always sound like an outsider. To Australians, I sound like I’m a Canadian or an American; and to Canadians and Americans, I sound like an Australian. And when I’m in Ukraine, I just sound like a foreigner.
No matter where I live, I won’t perfectly fit in. And even more than that, all the cultural nuances of different cultures where I might live are kind of foreign to me.
I’ve learned some of the Australian customs and culture, but that’s learned behaviour; it doesn’t come naturally. And when I was a kid, this used to bother me until God taught me the lesson of this exact passage.
The Most Important Teaching
This is often considered to be the most important teaching that comes from the Apostle Peter. It’s amazing, and it’s rich, and it’s not only relevant to those who fall between the cracks of different cultures like me.
It’s even more relevant for people who feel like they fit in on earth really well. It’s all about how God wants us to see ourselves, how He wants us to think about our identity, our group identity, and what group we belong to.
Where do our loyalties lie? Where are our hopes put?
“As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious…”
What Peter is saying is that we come to Jesus, who is a living stone. But Jesus, even though He is a living stone—which is interesting language; how can a stone be alive?—is poetic.
Peter is saying that Jesus was rejected by most people who heard him and saw him. But just because He was rejected, that does not mean that He was not chosen by God and precious to God.
Peter’s reminding us right at the beginning of this passage that our Saviour was rejected by men, even though He was chosen and precious to God. And that’s going to have implications for us as well; we’ll get into them.
“…you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
Peter is still getting into his flow of thought. But as he gets into it, he’s reminding us that just like Jesus is a living stone, we’re like a living stone.
And in this metaphor, we’re being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. What are these spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God?
They are:
- The praises that we give Him (for example, the songs that we’ve sung this morning).
- The honour that we show Him by the way that we live our lives.
- The service that we give Him by loving His children, as well as the people of the world in His name.
This is actually a lot more glorious than the sacrifices that existed in the Old Testament, where people would kill animals as a sacrifice to God.
The Responsibility of the Priest
Being a holy priesthood is really interesting. He’s saying that if you are a Christian, then you are, in some sense, a priest.
You are a person who has the responsibility and the right to come before the Lord and offer Him spiritual sacrifices. And it’s really important just that we zoom in a little bit on the words, “through Jesus Christ.”
All of us fall short; we’re distracted, we’re sinful, we’re tainted, we’re imperfect. But we love Jesus, and we have faith in Him, and therefore, even though our praise is not perfect, our honour that we try to give God is not complete.
We sometimes dishonour Him, and the service that we are called to do in His name, we don’t always do. Nevertheless, those sacrifices that we do offer are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
“For it stands in Scripture: ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.'”
Peter is reminding us that even though we do fall short, even after we become believers, if our belief is in the Lord Jesus, then we will not be put to shame. The Lord will choose to accept our spiritual sacrifices, just like a father overlooks the flaws in the drawings of their toddler child and says, “Well done.”
“So the honour is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’…”
What he’s saying, and what he’s reminding people that God has prophesied, is that even though Jesus was rejected, that doesn’t mean that He is not the Way, the Truth, and the Life. As a matter of fact, according to this prophecy, Jesus needed to be rejected.
“…and ‘A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence.’ They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.”
Peter is trying to assure you and me and the original readers of his letter that even though there are millions of people all around the world who reject Jesus, that does not mean that He is not the cornerstone. In the ancient world, when people would build houses, they would very carefully choose the right shaped stone to act as the cornerstone.
It’s the first and most important stone that’s laid in the house because if the cornerstone is good, the rest of the house ends up being straight and good; and if it’s not, it’s faulty and broken. But Peter is saying to us, “If you feel lonely, if you feel outnumbered, according to prophecy, you’re in the right place.”
Don’t be disheartened and don’t give up your hope in Jesus. Then, we have this really important line in verse 8: “They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.”
Human Responsibility and Divine Sovereignty
In that one sentence, Peter is touching on two different truths. He’s touching on human responsibility and God’s divine, all-powerful sovereignty.
According to the Bible, humans have responsibility. We have responsibility to repent of our sins and place our faith in the Lord Jesus.
But on the other hand, the Scriptures are really clear that nothing happens that is against the plan and the will of God. In the first books of the Bible, we read about the Pharaoh when God’s people were trying to leave Egypt.
(Exodus 9:12 and 8:15)
It says God hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that he didn’t repent and allow God’s people to go, but it also says there in Exodus that the Pharaoh hardened his own heart.
It’s kind of like a paradox. It’s a little bit like the Trinity; how can both of these things coexist in the same universe—human responsibility and divine, all-power?
It’s just one of those things where we have to accept it as being bigger than our capacity to understand. But Peter was meaning to communicate something much more useful to us than that high doctrine.
He says they stumble because they disobey the word. In other words, he’s saying those people who reject Jesus reject Him because their sin is more precious to them than what Jesus offers to them.
But at the same time, he wants to assure us that just because that is the case for many millions of people, that does not mean that God is out of control, or that the plan has failed, or that they might be making the right decision. Peter continues in verse 9, and this is the height of this whole passage.
“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.”
“Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
Isn’t that interesting language? Once we were not a people, but now we are God’s people.
We are a chosen race, and it’s interesting that he uses the language of race because we’re from all different races around the world. But Peter is trying to tell us that we might be rejected by men—rejected by our own culture, by our own country, by our own race even—but that doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter if we don’t fit in with those around us who are stumbling because they are disobeying the word, as they were destined to do. God has declared that we are a people.
Our “Together” Identity
It’s really interesting here that he uses “together” language all through this passage:
- “Being built up as a spiritual house” (verse 5).
- “To be a holy priesthood.”
- “A chosen race” (verse 9).
- “A royal priesthood.”
- “A holy nation.”
- “A people for His own possession.”
- “Once you were not a people… but now you are God’s people” (verse 10).
God wants us to know that He doesn’t see us as many different random individuals who He has individually saved and who are going to continue being little atomised individuals all over the world.
He wants us to know that He has made a new identity for His people. And as believers, that identity supersedes everything.
It supersedes our race. It supersedes our work. The most important thing about us is that we are a royal priesthood, not that we’re a lawyer or a doctor or a carpenter or a bricklayer. More importantly than the ways that we earn money is that each believer is part of a royal priesthood.
We are a holy nation. Even our nationality is superseded in importance by the fact that we belong to the people of God, and God wants us to see that togetherness as really important.
Implication of togetherness
There’s an implication from all of this. The priests of God would work together in the Old Testament to offer sacrifices to Him; different priests had different roles. In the New Testament, it’s really clear that God has ordained for different people in His churches to serve Him in different ways, but together to be something magnificent.
You might be tempted to separate yourself from the people of God, maybe because you think that you’re not worthy, or maybe because you think that they aren’t worthy of you. Or maybe because you’re hurt by the people of God, or maybe because you cause offence to someone else in the family of God and you’re not willing to be reconciled.
This passage highlights for us how important our group identity is—not just to us, so that we can do the things that we’re called to do, but to God. He sees us as a people group on the earth, scattered all through the world, a minority in every country where we are, but still a people group.
Think about the metaphor of the cornerstone… and us being stones in that same building. A stone by itself is just a stone, but when it is part of a wall, it has meaning and purpose and dignity. It is held up by the stones underneath it, and it is holding up the stones above it.
A people for His own possession; a people who belong to God. Just think about that for a moment—what that means to belong to the living God. We are the ones who has has chosen for his own.
Sometimes countries mistakenly think that they are chosen by God, and (for example) Australia will be blessed by God because it is somehow chosen by him. That desire is the right desire… but the way that it plays out isn’t by God choosing earthly nations or races to bless, but rather by him choosing and blessing his own people, all over the world, wherever we are and whoever we are.
Think about it… God uses the language of us being a “Holy Nation,” which is pretty interesting (and intentional) language to use for a multicultural and multi-ethnic church. God uses that language on purpose.
Nations have cultures and customs and laws. At the time that Peter wrote this, it was normal for people to marry within their own nation.
God is telling us that we are to see ourselves as fundamentally different from the unbelievers who are all over the world. The people around us might reject us… because our culture is shaped by the Bible, instead of by their norms… but that’s ok. We should expect it. In the Bible, it even says that Christians who get married are to be sure to marry “in the Lord.”
It’s not just surface-level differences between us and the culture around us. It goes deep, right to our very souls – and that’s ok. We will stand out, and, just like the original recipients of this letter, we might suffer because we stand out. We might suffer because our norms are God’s norm, not the ever-changing norms of our society.
Proclaiming His Excellencies
Think also about what Peter says in verse 9: we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, so that we might proclaim the excellencies of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvellous light. God wants us to give glory and honour and praise to Him because of what He has done for us.
God wants His goodness to be known. There’s an implication there, of course: He wants us to tell unbelievers about how good God has been to us.
But also, God wants us to tell other believers how good God has been to us. And this includes our salvation, but it’s not limited to our salvation.
God is good to His children, and He wants us to tell others about His goodness towards us. If you struggle to do this, it might be because you aren’t taking the time to notice the many ways in which God is good to you.
And if this is hard for you, I encourage you to every day try to choose one thing to be thankful to God for. Even if you don’t tell anyone else about it, at least you will be practising so that you will begin to notice some of the goodness of God towards you.
You can’t share with others the excellencies of God unless you notice and treasure those excellencies yourself. And in verse 11, there’s this wonderful kind of assurance, but also a help in terms of being thankful to God and knowing how to praise Him.
A People of Mercy
Peter says: “Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” Every time we sin, we have reason to proclaim the excellencies of God; we have reasons to be thankful to God because if we belong to Jesus, then we are forgiven.
Peter’s also trying to assure us when we might not feel like we deserve to be receiving the goodness of God. I know that there are people who feel like this; they say, “I don’t deserve God’s goodness, so I’m not going to receive it because I don’t measure up; I am not good enough.”
But what Peter is saying here is that everyone who is a part of the people of God is only a part because God is merciful to them. It is not because they’ve earned their way in, not because of their cultural background, not because of their ethnic background, not because of their passport, and not because of their job.
It is not because of the good deeds that they do after they become a Christian, nor because of good deeds that they might do before they become a Christian. Once we were not a people, but now we are God’s people.
Once we had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. That is the main marker of the people of God; it’s not that we are without sin.
The main marker of God’s people is that they know, and are delighted by, and accept the mercy of God. And friends, I just want to say to you, if you’re visiting us this morning and you know that you’re not perfect—you know that you don’t measure up—but you want to be part of God’s chosen people.
The people who are loved by Him, chosen by Him, shown mercy by Him so that we might proclaim the excellencies of Him who called us out of the darkness into the light… If you want to belong to God’s people, it is very simple: you need to repent of your sins and put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Cross: The Source of Mercy
His death on the cross makes it possible for you to receive all of the goodness of God that He has planned for history. The death of Jesus on the cross makes it possible for sinners to receive mercy.
And I urge you, as do all the Christians in this room, to receive the mercy that God offers to you. He is truly good; we can testify to that, otherwise we wouldn’t still be Christians.
Let’s pray.